Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962), best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at #2 in the US country album chart while climbing to #13 on the Billboard 200 pop album chart. Brookss integration of rock elements into his recordings and live performances has earned him immense popularity. This progressive approach allowed him to dominate the country single and album charts while quickly crossing over into the mainstream pop arena, exposing country music to a larger audience.

Brooks has enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the 1990s. Garth Brooks still continues to sell well and according to Nielsen Soundscan, his album sales up to 68,363,000 (until the end of 2009), which makes him the best-selling albums artist in the United States in the SoundScan era (List of best-selling music artists in the United States) (since 1991), a title held since 1991, well over 7 million ahead of his nearest rival, The Beatles. Furthermore, according to RIAA he is the best-selling solo albums artist in the United States of all time (List of best-selling music artists in the United States) (overall is second to the Beatles) with 128 million units sold. Brooks has released six albums that achieved diamond (RIAA certification) status in the United States, those being: Garth Brooks (Garth Brooks (album)) (10� platinum), No Fences (17� platinum), Ropin the Wind (14� platinum), The Hits (The Hits (Garth Brooks album)) (10� platinum), Sevens (Sevens (album)) (10� platinum) and Double Live (Double Live (Garth Brooks album)) (21� platinum). Since 1989, Brooks has released 19 records in all, which include; 9 studio albums, 1 live album, 4 compilation albums, 3 Christmas albums and 2 box sets, along with 77 singles.

Troubled by conflicts between career and family, Brooks officially retired from recording and performing from 2001 until 2009. During this time he sold millions of albums through an exclusive distribution deal with Wal-Mart and has sporadically released new singles. In 2005, Brooks started a partial comeback, and has since given several performances and released two compilation albums.

On October 15, 2009, Garth Brooks announced the end of his retirement. In December 2009, he began a 5 year concert deal with the Encore Hotel and Casino (Encore Las Vegas) on the Las Vegas Strip. He continues to deny any plans to tour or record new music for another 5 years.Citation neededdate=January 2010